generally called the Monoceros or Sea Unicorn, is thus shown in one place, by Gesner; and, rough though it is, it is far more like the Narwhal's horn than is the other, also, in hi...
There always has been a tradition of birds being existent, of far greater size than those usually visible. The Maoris aver that at times they still hear the gigantic Moa in the scr...
As Pliny not only uses all Aristotle's matter anent Bears, but puts it in a consecutive, and more readable form, it is better to transcribe his version than that of the older autho...
Of Serpents Topsell has written a "Historie," which, if not altogether veracious, is very amusing; and I shall quote largely from it, as it shows us "the latest thing out" in Serpe...
If, as we may conjecture from the above, the ancient Briton was "a rugged man, o'ergrown with hair," his full-dress toilette must have occupied some time. But extreme hairiness in...
This extraordinary combination of man and animal is very ancient--and the first I can find is Assyrian. Mr. W. St. Chad Boscawen, in one of his British Museum Lectures (afterwards...
The true Unicorn is, of course, the Rhinoceros, and this picture of it is as early an one as I can find, being taken from Aldrovandus de Quad, A.D. 1521. Gesner and Topsell both re...
"The Sea-Mouse makes a hole in the Earth, and lays her Eggs there, and then covers them with Earth: on the 30th day she digs it open again, and brings her young to the Sea, first b...
By Englishmen, the Fox has been raised to the height of at least a demigod--and his cult is a serious matter attended with great minutiae of ritual. Englishmen and Foxes cannot liv...
We are indebted to Pliny for much strange animal lore--which, however, will scarcely bear the fierce light of modern investigation. Thus, he tells us of places in which certain ani...
The antitheses of men--Dwarfs, and Giants--must not be overlooked, as they are abnormal, and yet have existed in all ages. Dwarfs are mentioned in the Bible, Leviticus xxi. 20, whe...
Pliny says:--"The Dolphin is an animal not only friendly to man, but a lover of music as well; he is charmed by melodious concerts, and more especially by the notes of the water or...
"The SPHYNGA or Sphinx, is of the kind of Apes, but his breast up to his necke, pilde and smooth without hayre: the face is very round, yet sharp and piked, having the breasts of w...
One would have imagined that this Egg would be sufficient to test the credulity of most people, but Aldrovandus was equal to the occasion, and he gives us a "Moon Woman," who lays...
Sluper, who could soar to the height of delineating a Cyclops, is equal to the occasion when he has to deal with Apes, and here he gives us an Ape which, unfortunately, does not se...
The ancient fable so dear, even to modern poets, that Swans sing before they die--was not altogether believed even in classical times, as saith Pliny:--"It is stated that at the mo...
On the antiquity of man it is impossible to speculate, because we have no data to go upon. We know that his earliest existence, of which we have any cognisance, must have been at a...
But of all extraordinary stories connected with the Wolf, is the belief which existed for many centuries, (and in some parts of France still does exist, under the form of the "Loup...
"There are oxen, too, like that of India, some with one horn, and others with three; the leucrocotta, a wild beast of extraordinary swiftness, the size of the wild ass, with the le...
Aldrovandus gives us the accompanying illustration of a Chimaera, a fabulous Classical monster, said to possess three heads, those of a lion, a goat, and a dragon. It used so to be...
Pliny tells us that in the Indian Ocean are Crayfish four cubits in length (six feet), and he claims for crabs a sovereign specific against bites of scorpions and snakes:--"River-C...
The Wolf, as a beast of prey, is invested with a terror peculiarly its own; when solitary, it is not much dreaded by, and generally shrinks from, man, but, united by hunger into pa...
We have already seen some of the wonderfully curative properties of animals--let us learn something of their own medical attainments--as described by Pliny. "The hippopotamus has e...
Near the land of the Cynocephali or dog-headed men, there were many islands, and, "Also in this yle, and in many yles thereabout are many wyld geese with two heads." But these were...
Sometimes a specimen of humanity has got astray in infancy, and has been dragged up somehow in the woods, like Caspar Hauser, and Peter the Wild Boy, and fiction supplies other ins...
Olaus Magnus thus describes the Gulo or Gulon:--"Amongst all creatures that are thought to be insatiable in the Northern parts of Sweden, the Gulo hath his name to be the principal...
The accompanying illustration, though heading the chapter in Olaus Magnus regarding the Swamfisck and other fish, does not at all seem to elucidate the text:--"The Variety of these...
Of the Scorpion, Pliny says:--"This animal is a dangerous scourge, and has a venom like that of the serpent; with the exception that its effects are far more painful, as the person...
The Busy Bee, too, according to Olaus Magnus, developed, in the regions of the North, a peculiarity to which it seems a stranger with us, but which might be encouraged, with benefi...
Aldrovandus gives us a curious specimen of a horse, which the artist has drawn with the slashed trunk breeches of the time. He says that Fincelius, quoting Licosthenes, mentions th...